I passed a wheat field on the way home from work today. Around this time of year the golden hues emerge, spelling the imminence of harvest. I stopped and took this picture out of my car window as the warm summer breeze created a wave across the field. Later, I began to think about the vast number of wheat stalks in this field---not to mention the kernels. The number was staggering and not unlike the grains of sand at the beach.
Why is this talk of wheat such a big deal? I drive by these fields everyday. Why devote a blog entry to such a mundane, everyday part of life? The secret of the seed is the essence of life. Learn the lessons contained there and the meaning of your own life is not far away.
The crown jewel of any plant is the bud, the flower or the fruit. Within each of these is the seed which contain the DNA of many successive generations. The code for whether a plant becomes a flowering bush or an apple tree is held securely in the seed. Only when that seed falls to the ground and is broken apart or crushed can a new generation emerge.
People as a rule do not like change. But change is a season that is natural as any summer harvest. There is a planting, a ripening, and a harvest. And when the time comes for the threshing---the separating of the grain from the chaff---there is a brokenness and pain and a certain degree of vulnerability. The kernel is being exposed for the first time to outside elements.
In human terms and events, the process is painful and unpleasant perhaps because we take it personal instead of taking it with the understanding presented here in the lesson of the wheat. We misunderstand the ripeness of the harvest---saying that we are not ready or that it is not time. We misunderstand the chaff or the ones we are separated from during the harvest and replanting. It is not that those people were not right for the previous season, they are just not right for the current one. People move in and out of our lives with the ebb and flow of the yearly summer harvest. Offense, which is decided upon by you and me, will keep us from being fruitful in the new harvest. Pliable, vulnerable, usable, plant-able---the "right now' conditions of a future harvest.
Why is this talk of wheat such a big deal? I drive by these fields everyday. Why devote a blog entry to such a mundane, everyday part of life? The secret of the seed is the essence of life. Learn the lessons contained there and the meaning of your own life is not far away.
The crown jewel of any plant is the bud, the flower or the fruit. Within each of these is the seed which contain the DNA of many successive generations. The code for whether a plant becomes a flowering bush or an apple tree is held securely in the seed. Only when that seed falls to the ground and is broken apart or crushed can a new generation emerge.
People as a rule do not like change. But change is a season that is natural as any summer harvest. There is a planting, a ripening, and a harvest. And when the time comes for the threshing---the separating of the grain from the chaff---there is a brokenness and pain and a certain degree of vulnerability. The kernel is being exposed for the first time to outside elements.
In human terms and events, the process is painful and unpleasant perhaps because we take it personal instead of taking it with the understanding presented here in the lesson of the wheat. We misunderstand the ripeness of the harvest---saying that we are not ready or that it is not time. We misunderstand the chaff or the ones we are separated from during the harvest and replanting. It is not that those people were not right for the previous season, they are just not right for the current one. People move in and out of our lives with the ebb and flow of the yearly summer harvest. Offense, which is decided upon by you and me, will keep us from being fruitful in the new harvest. Pliable, vulnerable, usable, plant-able---the "right now' conditions of a future harvest.
No comments:
Post a Comment